Re: scm-like change tracking in gnumeric

[Brandon Casey <casey nrlssc navy mil>]

Leonard Mada wrote:
> Hi Brandon,
>
> you have very nicely summed up the features that a modern spreadsheet should offer.

Thanks.

> I touched myself some of these features in a similar post on the OpenOffice.org website, see:
>
> http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=80139
> (especially the Track Changes paragraph) and
> http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=80325
>
> Indeed, tracking only some of the cells is a fundamental feature for tracking changes in spreadsheets.
>
> Also, it is needed to track changes in the computed values, NOT the cell content per se.

Ok, this was confusing in your 80139 post, but more clearly described in 80325.

You say "...NOT the cell content per se". Do you mean the computed values should be tracked
in _addition_ to the formula in the cell? Or are you saying that _only_ the computed value
should be tracked and _not_ the formula in the cell? The latter is what your comment above
seems to imply, but you must mean the former right?

I definitely understand why you (and me) would want to know which descendant cells changed
when another cell is changed, but I'm not sure "tracking", as in storing the result of the
computed value, is the right thing to do. I agree that some way to mark that the value of
a cell has changed would be useful, even if it changed because some other cell has changed.
I wonder if something like the dependency diagrams provided by Tools->Detective->Trace Dependents
would be sufficient?

-brandon